 Poster: A snowHead
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brian, again yes: I've been on a ridge when the slope below us went (we must have caused it).
I was also once in a situation between the two. It was long ago and I would now not go on a similar slope under those conditions since I'd know it was unsafe. It was above Tignes. I was alone off piste on a steepish convex slope on a hot day after heavy snowfall and near some avalanche barriers. (Yes, I know, a list of all the things to avoid, but our TR rep had told me it was a quick way home after a group off-piste picnic and I knew no better). There was a loud "crack" and a crack appeared in the snow above me while the snow a few yards below me avalanched and went down over an edge. The bit I was on had slipped about an inch and then stuck again (otherwise I'd have been dead). The period after that, getting back off that unstable slope, was about the most scary I can remember on skis. 3 people died in avalanches in France that day.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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> Safe off-piste without avi kit
A bit like driving your car safely - with out the seat belt on 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Am I correct that most avalanche injuries/deaths (all very sad) relate to experienced skiers who nevertheless have the requisite knowledge for such skiing, simply because statistically they are the ones that mainly ski off piste ?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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rayscoops, depends where you are. In Canada and the US - snowmobilers are now amongst the leaders in deaths.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Haggis_Trap wrote: |
> Safe off-piste without avi kit
A bit like driving your car safely - with out the seat belt on |
What, unless you lose control or somewhere crashes in to you you're safe?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| Am I correct that most avalanche injuries/deaths (all very sad) relate to experienced skiers who nevertheless have the requisite knowledge for such skiing, simply because statistically they are the ones that mainly ski off piste ? |
You are correct that most avalanche victims are male, aged 20-40 and live in or close to the mountains. I would suggest that in some cases their ski experience is often well in advance of their mountain knowledge and in others they've deliberately decided to chance it.
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davidof, my thought really was that no matter how well we (think we can) ski or how much knowledge we have, the mountains can be very unforgiving 
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davidof,
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You are correct that most avalanche victims are male, aged 20-40 and live in or close to the mountains. I would suggest that in some cases their ski experience is often well in advance of their mountain knowledge and in others they've deliberately decided to chance it.
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Gosh, I'm so totally unlike that profile that, statistically, I should be safe wherever I go! (Only joking.)
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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BTW Hurtle et Al,
If you're not already aware, its possible to rent a transceiver, shovel & probe (or full touring rucksack) in most good rental shops, so for the days you think off piste looks good & you'd like to try some stuff its not a bad way to go. Its relatively inexpensive too.
p.s. Looking at all this good info I cringe now at the thought of how when I started heading off piste first, we just went in under the ropes with no proper safety gear, little idea of where we were going, and no idea of what we were doing vis a vis crevasses, avas, or anything else tbh. 
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horgand, To be honest I'd rather ski off piste on my own than with a group of equipped people who don't know what they are doing. Look how many poeple set off a slide onto another person below them. If you are buried then are your companions able to mount a quick search and rescue operation? Much better not to get caught in the first place and sometimes it is easier to make judgements and route adjustments when you are alone or with a small number of experienced people. Sometimes being part of a larger group just makes you feel complacent.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| davidof, my thought really was that no matter how well we (think we can) ski or how much knowledge we have, the mountains can be very unforgiving |
Or as Messner nicely put it "mountains are neither just, nor unjust, they are just dangerous".
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I wonder what proportion of in-between piste skiers are actually carrying avvy gear. I'd wager that even amongst those who clearly possess the skiing skills, the vast majority aren't.
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I do recall reading a paper that showed in a number of avalanche incidents in North America people who had some knowledge did not make the correct decisions when there was enough evidence available to them to make the right decision. It seams that it is hard to decide to turn back even if it is obviously the best thing to do.
On the topic of slab avalanche starting points. The obvious fracture lines and crown fractures can occur everywhere from right at your feet to some hundreds of meters away. Once while skiing on very gentle terrain (15 degrees) we felt the snow pack collapse with an obvious whoomph sound and saw fractures start 300m from us and spread across to a steeper slope about 600m away and cause an avalanche. There were no fractures closer to us than 300m and all were on steeper terrain. We were aware that there was a very weak layer due to buried surface hoar, and our route took that into consideration. Having seen how unstable the conditions were we went home. I have seen the aftermath of an avalanche that was triggered by a snow groomer where the crown was 200m above the machine and ran for 1500m along the ridge line. The crown wall was over 2 meters hight and there was some hundreds of thousands of tonnes of snow in the slide.
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You know it makes sense.
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I guess
there are bold skiers
old skiers
but very few old bold skiers
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Lots of piste skiers stray onto "side off" piste. Not a majority of course but I'd say a pretty large minority. How many skiers die/injured in avalanches per year? Of course the risk is serious (just like the risk of flying on a plane without a parachute), but just how high is the risk for the casual off pister?
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Poster: A snowHead
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Sarge McSarge, that confirms what I thought - ta. Scary things.
slikedges, Probably relatively little per skier mile just off the edge - in North America I think the risk is nearly entirely back country, and mainly from avalanches triggered by the skier or one of their own party. On the other hand I don't want my gravestone to say "he died with his helmet/beacon left behind in his hotel room".
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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stoatsbrother, I just think it's disingenuous to people reading this thread who might be thinking of trying a bit of beyond the piste marker skiing to be giving them the impression that by straying there without avvy gear they immediately enter the ranks of the criminally ignorant, irresponsible and insane, when in fact what they'd be doing is very much in keeping with normal practice in the real world. We don't want people thinking that sH is a community of unrealistic alarmists.
I discussed this issue with a couple of friends I was skiing with in Nendaz and Verbier over the last few days. One is a respected race coach and the other a respected instructor. Both said of course it was common practice to go outside of piste markers without avvy gear and that most people just used their common sense. The problem of how to advise them to do it safely presents itself of course, and there's no easy answer to this. Mostly but certainly not exclusively, the dangers lie in high avalanche terrain and some way from the pistes. However, in some areas even very near the piste it's daft to even contemplate doing it, though in most areas very near the piste it's pretty well as safe as being on the piste itself, at least from an avvy control viewpoint.
I guess my best advice would be to use internet/dvd/books/talks to get some knowledge, then ask people and watch people to develop a feel for what might be safe to try and what might not be. Then just do it. If one gets to the point of wanting to do stuff not wholly visible from a chair passing overhead/not already being skied by hoards that include children and early intermediates then re-evaluate the need for training and avvy gear. All imho only. I'm really no expert.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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slikedges, I would agree with that. Its a personal choice. The thread started by scarpa with some piccies shows a small slide started by a snowhead just off a piste. People need to understand that too.
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Its personal responsibility too as well as personal choice. Which, as others have mentioned, makes it an intrinsically difficult thing to answer in the abstract on the internet. The person taking the decision makes the choice based on their assessment of their abilities and the environment they find themselves in. Obviously off piste covers all manner of different environments even before you factor in the weather. As such the risks - many of which relate to having to make judgements with only limited information - inevitably increase in comparison to being on piste.
So whilst it is quite possible for someone to question what is the real risk of this relatively flat piece of gentle powder snow with no terrain traps anywhere near which I have looked at several times from the lift etc, that is quite different from someone being able to provide any type of generic advice with no real feel for the ability of the individual concerned or the terrain in which they might find themselves in. Asa result any advice proffered, like much of the good advice above, is most likely to be quite conservative and at the more risk averse end of the scale.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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nozawaonsen,
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So whilst it is quite possible for someone to question what is the real risk of this relatively flat piece of gentle powder snow with no terrain traps anywhere near which I have looked at several times from the lift etc, that is quite different from someone being able to provide any type of generic advice with no real feel for the ability of the individual concerned or the terrain in which they might find themselves in. Asa result any advice proffered, like much of the good advice above, is most likely to be quite conservative and at the more risk averse end of the scale.
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That's a very fair point. It's partly what I had in mind when I said my question might have been a stupid one.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| slikedges wrote: |
| I discussed this issue with a couple of friends I was skiing with in Nendaz and Verbier over the last few days. One is a respected race coach and the other a respected instructor. Both said of course it was common practice to go outside of piste markers without avvy gear and that most people just used their common sense. The problem of how to advise them to do it safely presents itself of course, and there's no easy answer to this. Mostly but certainly not exclusively, the dangers lie in high avalanche terrain and some way from the pistes. However, in some areas even very near the piste it's daft to even contemplate doing it, though in most areas very near the piste it's pretty well as safe as being on the piste itself, at least from an avvy control viewpoint. |
I agree with that. When Scott and I were teaching in Solden in December we had really good snow so spent a couple of days doing a mixture of on and near the piste (in truth it was often difficult to tell quite where we were given the snow and visibility). Our clients enjoyed it, and for most of them it was the first time they had spent significant amounts of time off the groomed slopes. We felt comfortable doing this given the terrain we were on, the snow conditions at the time and the avalanche reports in force. In different conditions we would have avoided at least some of the terrain we skied. I think the problems arise when people want to have certainty without developing the ability to make their own risk assessments. Blanket statements such as "near the piste is safe" are simply untrue, and potentially dangerous. Equally I accept that giving the impression that the moment you ski away from the piste you are immediately in a high risk scenario is excessively cautious. The key message must be that everyone who wants to ski off piste really should make some effort to develop at least a rudimentary understanding of snowpack stability. There are increasing resources available to do this, so there's no excuse for not giving it a go. At the very least you need the knowledge to understand the local avalanche forecast and perhaps to ask sensible questions, and understand the answers, of any instructor/guide you might be skiing with.
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| Hurtle wrote: |
rob@rar,
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perhaps to ask sensible questions, and understand the answers, of any instructor/guide you might be skiing with.
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Like, 'Any idea where we are?'
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I can normally tell what resort we're in, although sometimes even that gets a bit hazy. Remarkably I did really well on the navigation and leading element of my Mountain Safety assessment
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I saw the Mammut iPhone app listed up the page. For the German speakers the one from the Swiss Avalanche centre might be useful too. The snow info only covers Switzerland but it does have some useful go / no-go decision tools. And it's free.
Go to http://itunes.com/apps/WhiteRiskmobile to get it.
Apparently a French version is coming soon and hopefully after that they might start working on an English one[/url]
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The SCGB is running two mountain craft courses this season aimed precisely at people wishing to learn more about off piste safety. The courses last six days which is probably the minimum time you need to get a decent understanding of the issues involved. No doubt there are other organisations which run similar courses.
When I was on the ski club reps course many years ago now, one of the statistics that stuck in my mind was that over fifty per cent of skiers that die in avalanches, die in relatively small avalanches that they themselves initiate. I have questioned other mountain guides subsequently about that statistic and they have always agreed. Perhaps davidof, might have some relevant data?
The word avalanche often conjures up in many people's minds, massive falls wiping out everything in their path and naturally mainstream media coverage inevitably gives the same impression when reporting avalanche deaths. Although huge avalanches do occur naturally from time to time as happened in the Chamonix valley and Arlberg about ten years ago, they are not the norm.
Any of us that has fallen over in soft snow will have had occassions, particularly where the skis have stayed on, where we have struggled to get up by ourselves. A couple of feet of extra snow on top and it is probably impossible to get out by yourself.
That I feel is why accidents do happen near the piste and on relatively small slopes. Some people are naturally aware of the perceived danger of large slopes, however in reality it is often the small tempting little slopes and snow bowls that get people.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| richjp wrote: |
Any of us that has fallen over in soft snow will have had occassions, particularly where the skis have stayed on, where we have struggled to get up by ourselves. A couple of feet of extra snow on top and it is probably impossible to get out by yourself.
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Avalanche snow is not like normal snow - it packs into a solid mass as it comes to rest, with the force of the slide. Anyone who has skied over an old avalanche knows it is more like big lumps of ice stuck together. If you are even a little bit under it you cannot move at all.
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